He sat in his room in the hostel and wondered why he had sent that accursed email. It was all he could think of for it somehow suggested he was much sillier than he allowed himself reasonable leash. In those weeks of hurting emptiness, he wondered if there was anything wrong with his sending the email. Was the problem not that he detected a poorly concealed hostility...

This is the Land of Origins. This, you have only dreamt of in your dreams. Amazing. The air is purpled with music of the spheres! There’s no sorrow. No pain. The breath of life is streaked with whitish blue rhythms, at best bluish silver. Here. Mother-nature squats gigantically with her big blue thighs, popping out new babies each passing second...

We all carry mirrors in our pockets, and we take them out every so often to inspect our reflection and make sure we look good. On top of that, our clothes click with tiny style mirrors embedded into the collars and hems. They’re really lovely...

They came sometime in the morning. Very early. The sound of land rovers not obvious at first but once they veered off the bitumen road onto the sandy gravel of the market square the grinding crunch of the tyres left no one in doubt. It had started...

The boy was weeping silently. The nurse was indifferent. Kayode was dumbfounded. He did not doubt the futility of the policeman's accusation when the case is reported to a superior officer. What surprised him was the audacity behind the whole farce. To be accused of murder, for helping to save a life is ridiculous as it is ludicrous...

"He had a bump on his forehead, an expression as if he were sniffing something bad. He pronounced his visions between chants that sounded like the Yoruba words for butterfly, dung beetle and turkey: labalaba, yimiyimi, tolotolo. He smelled of incense..."

"The very truth is that there's no honesty in Ikerre people. That's the problem with them: they can kill a person and you won't even see a drop of blood. As for me, the reason why they don't like me, is that I don't chew my words. I spit them out the way they are..."

"Wetin be the use say Baba Moruf na him be the Chief Supervisor for NEPA if he no fit do am make we dey get small light..."

"The Igbo were killed in large numbers at every strike of the Nigerian bombs. Nigerian warplanes picked out crowded Biafran civilian targets as if they were on strict orders to ensure maximum carnage..."

"Mama Felicity is still shouting, 'I will give you anything you want! I will give you anything you want but please don't touch my daughter! Don't touch my baby!' She is shouting on and on and the two soldiers are still on top her with their trousers down and their fat hairy buttocks moving up and down..."